English Aid: Tort?

[Liar]

Hey y'all. So, in the middle of doing translation work for a local finance magazine, and came across a term that I can't quite pinpoint.

Tort. As in tort law and tort reform.

I've tried googling it and looking it up elsewhere and come up with some kind of similar but still different explanations so I'm not sure what's accurate.

Now, I know the general idea of what ballpark it's in. It has something to do with litigatious and frivolous law suits. Or maybe that's the effect of tort law, and that's why some wants it reformed, or whatever.

Can someone narrow it down for me?

 

[impressive]

Once you find your explanation, I want to know what a "litigatious" lawsuit is.

 

[Liar]

Once you find your explanation, I want to know what a "litigatious" lawsuit is.

Me too, I'm just making up words here as I go along.

 

[neonlyte]

Put simply, Tort is a legal wrong.

Common usage applies Tort to personal injury (in UK), USA interpretation may be slightly different as it can be used to claim implied injury rather than physical injury.

 

[glynndah]

Generally speaking, tort law defines what constitutes a legal injury, and establishes the circumstances under which one person may be held liable for another's injury.

Cut and pasted from the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort

 

[oggbashan]

Concise Oxford Dictionary:

tort: n (Law). breach of duty (other than under contract) leading to liability for damages; so ~feasor (-z-) person guilty of tort [ME f. OF, f med. L tortum wrong, neut. p.p. (as n.) of L torquere tort- twist]

 

[Pure]

a tort is a wrong that's occurred [[i.e. someone's been wronged]]. there is, however, civil liability, not criminal liability, i.e. you can be sued.

you commit a wrong if you leave your steps slippery and someone falls and breaks their leg. the police are not involved.

"tort" could be translated as, a wrong, a wrongful act [including omission], a civil wrong, as opposed to criminal wrong [crime].

the difference is this. when you rob the corner store, you not only injure the owner, you show yourself a danger to society. so the case is People v. Liar. if you lose, society punishes you, perhpas by imprisonment. the victim, oddly, gets nothing, or just compensation from a 'victim' fund.

if you leave your steps slippery, you pose minimal danger to soceiety. your 'act', so to say, is negligence.
if Jones sues you, it's a case of Jones v. Liar. you can't go to jail, but you could owe Jones a pile of money.

===

"breach of duty" is mentioned above. that is also a phrase that could translate. however, more serious breaches of "duty" lead in some cases to criminal liability, e.g. a pilot of a plane who gets drunk and crashes it, and manages to survive, but half the passengers are dead. hence, perhpas a charge of "criminal negligence causing death."

 

[Pure]

i like this explanation, which doesn't struggle to find one word or sentence

http://www.rbs2.com/torts.htm


The easiest way to get a sense of torts is to list the major areas of tort litigation:

personal injury (e.g., automobile accident, slip and fall, dog bite)

medical malpractice

products liability (e.g., defect in either manufacturing or design of product, failure to warn)

wrongful death: survivor recovers economic value of remainder of decedent's life

patent infringement; copyright infringement

defamation (i.e., libel or slander)

intentional wrongs against a person: assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress. (N.B., assault and battery can also be crimes, see my essay that compares civil and criminal law)

wrongs involving tangible property: conversion, "trespass to chattels" (N.B., same occurrence could also result in criminal prosecution for theft)

wrongs involving real property: nuisance against nearby landowner, trespass on land

wrongs against a business, such as "unfair competition" or trademark infringement

dignitary harms against a person, such as
invasion of privacy: intrusion on seclusion, unreasonable publicity given to private life, publicity placing person in false light
civil rights violations, e.g., 42 USC § 1983


four elements

There are four elements to a tort, all of which must be present before the court can order a remedy:

Duty. The defendant must owe a legal duty to the victim. A duty is a legally enforceable obligation to conform to a particular standard of conduct. Except in malpractice and strict liability cases, the duty is set by what a "reasonable man of ordinary prudence" would have done. There is a general duty to prevent foreseeable injury to a victim.

Breach of the duty. The defendant breached that duty.

Causation. The breach was the cause of an injury to the victim. The causation does not need to be direct: defendant's act (or failure to act) could begin a continuous sequence of events that ended in plaintiff's injury, a so-called "proximate cause".

Injury. There must be an injury. In most cases, there must be a physical or financial injury to the victim, but sometimes emotional distress, embarrassment, or dignitary harms are adequate for recovery.

In most torts the defendant's actions were an accident (e.g., defendant was negligent), but torts also cover wrongs where the defendant intended to harm the victim.

Sometimes one sees the statement that the central idea in [most] torts is the concept of fault. Fault is the departure of defendant's conduct a minimum acceptable standard of conduct. In other words, fault is the breach of the duty mentioned above. [/I]

 

[Liar]

Ok, thank you all.

So, to put it in extremely simple terms:

A tort is the actual act (or inaction by negligence, as it may be) that is not illegal per se, but which, if it has bad consequences, might get you sued.

So one could, even if I never have heard that expression, commit/do/preform a tort?

 

[impressive]

Ok, thank you all.

So, to put it in extremely simple terms:

A tort is the actual act (or inaction by negligence, as it may be) that is not illegal per se, but which, if it has bad consequences, might get you sued.

So one could, even if I never have heard that expression, commit/do/preform a tort?

If you tort me, I'm gonna sue you.

 

[The_Fool]

Nevermind. My mind was elsewhere...

 

[kendo1]

Ok, thank you all.

So, to put it in extremely simple terms:

A tort is the actual act (or inaction by negligence, as it may be) that is not illegal per se, but which, if it has bad consequences, might get you sued.

So one could, even if I never have heard that expression, commit/do/preform a tort?

I doubt it.

You can't perform a negligence.

Tort is a noun.

 

[Liar]

If you tort me, I'm gonna sue you.

Do you really want to tort me?
Do you really want to make me cry?

 

[kendo1]

So an act of negligence where you want to hurt someone would be torture?

 

[Oblimo]

So, to put it in extremely simple terms:

A tort is the actual act (or inaction by negligence, as it may be) that is not illegal per se, but which, if it has bad consequences, might get you sued.

That's not bad--although there are torts per se, such as certain forms of slander. But, even more pedantically, you cannot commit a tort without causing harm. An act is tortious (real word!) only if it has all the legal elements: if you breach a duty and cause harm as a result. If a babysitter dropped a toddler in a pool and the only consequence was the toddler learning how to swim, there's no action in tort. The babysitter's just really bad at the job.

So one could, even if I never have heard that expression, commit/do/preform a tort?

Yep. You can commit a tortious act even if you've never eaten a linzer.

Torts are civil wrongs. They are almost always actions in rem, that is, you sue to get some of the other guys stuff to make up for what he did to you.

Let's not get into equitable remedies right now though. My brain hurts from being served too cold ice-cream. Oughta sue the bastards.

 

[Oblimo]

So an act of negligence where you want to hurt someone would be torture?

Boo!

But I'm suddenly reminded of an early Simpson episode where Bart and Lisa are walking slowly into the center of the room, Bart swinging his fists in circles, Lisa doing groin level kicks.

 

[Oblimo]

I doubt it.

You can't perform a negligence.

Tort is a noun.

So is act.

Typical high-falutin' lawyerly phrasing is "committed a tortious act." You can also "commit (or perform) a tort," although that sounds like a unpleasant biological function to me for some reason:

"Oh God I just torted. Don't look, don't look!"

You can also bring an action or sue in tort. You can also claim to want tort reform, which is a synonym for corporate welfare.

 

[kendo1]

So is act.

Typical high-falutin' lawyerly phrasing is "committed a tortious act." You can also "commit (or perform) a tort," although that sounds like a unpleasant biological function to me for some reason:

"Oh God I just torted. Don't look, don't look!"

You can also bring an action or sue in tort. You can also claim to want tort reform, which is a synonym for corporate welfare.

My point was that you couldn't tort.

Just as you couldn't negligenced. I'm not familiar with how to make this word into a verb, what is acceptable.

Where's Shang when you need him?

 

[Oblimo]

Just as you couldn't negligenced. I'm not familiar with how to make this word into a verb, what is acceptable.

There is no verb form of tort (torture is a cousin, both descend from tortus, which I think means "twist"). The legal community neglected to create one.

Let's sue the bastards!

 

[TxRad]

Check out Trysails mad as hell thread, it might shed som light or maybe not.

 

[impressive]

There is no verb form of tort (torture is a cousin, both descend from tortus, which I think means "twist"). The legal community neglected to create one.

Let's sue the bastards!

Well, come isn't a noun, either -- but we use it that way.

I still say that if you tort me, I'm gonna sue you.

 

[impressive]

By far, the preferable tort:

http://www.eddiesbakerycafe.com/tort92.JPG

 

[Liar]

Isn't that a tart?

 

[trysail]

Liar,
I had to chuckle when I read that you weren't familiar with the word tort. As bright as you are, that could only occur if one were a non-U.S. resident! Be grateful; you don't know how lucky you are (on second thought-- yes, perhaps you do).

We in the U.S. are cursed by a culture that has come to regard tort litigation as an acceptable equivalent of a lottery ticket. It is an attitude that is corrosive to the fabric of society. It's a shame.

 

[impressive]

Isn't that a tart?

No. This is a tart:

http://www.crankycritic.com/archive00/posters/tart.jpg